


What Love Feels Like

by violaeade



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellarke, F/M, Fluff, a heaping pile of fluffy trash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 16:46:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3454421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violaeade/pseuds/violaeade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a dumb injury, Clarke needs some stitches, Abby is busy, Bellamy is worried, and he offers to help sew her up--Bellamy cares for Clarke a lot more than he lets himself realize</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Love Feels Like

**Author's Note:**

> apparently i'm only able to write about clarke and bellamy at this point in my life, so here's another new story. i just love these two idiots. idk when this would take place, but it doesn't fit into canon. once again, it was inspired by tumblr user underbellamy when i was scrolling through my likes. hope you enjoy!! i'd LOVE to hear what you think, so all reviews are appreciated :)))

Bellamy’s hands tighten on his gun when he hears shouting from the gate. He turns and bolts towards the noise, his heart already racing and his mind preparing itself to shoot and kill if necessary. What he sees when he reaches the gate doesn’t slow his heart rate, but it makes him drop his gun.

“Clarke?” he yells, and she looks up from the guard that she’s leaning on. She gives him a small smile, but it’s all wrong because there’s blood trailing down her forehead and bruises covering her face.

Bellamy reaches Clarke and the guard, and without thinking, he takes Clarke’s face in his hands and cradles her cheeks. Gently, gently, he traces his thumb over some of the bruises on her face, frowning and feeling worry plant itself heavily in his chest. He feels Clarke shiver beneath his fingertips, and his stomach twists into a knot.

“Clarke, are you okay?” he asks, his voice so quiet compared to the uncontrollable chaos inside him.

“I’m fine, Bell, just a little banged up,” she says, but not very convincingly. She looks exhausted, and she’s leaning heavily on the guard.

Bellamy’s hands slide from Clarke’s face and he turns to the guard. “I’ll get her to the med-bay, but thanks for your help.”

The guard shrugs and slowly lets go of Clarke. She grabs Bellamy’s forearm to keep herself steady, and takes a shaky breath. She tries to hide it, but Bellamy hears, and it’s that second he realizes how utterly devastated he’d be if something ever happened to Clarke. When had Bellamy become so attached? How long had it taken Clarke to become so important to Bellamy that just the thought of her dying left him feeling broken?

She looks at Bellamy and smiles, trying to seem brave. “Well? What are we waiting for? The med-bay awaits.”

She takes one step and stumbles, knocking into Bellamy and gasping in pain. Bellamy catches her, and places one hand on her waist and wraps the other arm around her shoulder to keep her upright.

“Clarke, what happened?” There’s more panic in his voice this time, and he takes a tentative step forward, testing whether or not Clarke is able to walk now.

She sighs and growls, “I’m a godamn idiot and I fell down a hill.”

Bellamy’s baffled for a second and doesn’t say anything, so Clarke fills the silence.

“I saw the steepness of the hill, I knew it was unsteady near the edge, but I thought I saw some of the herbs I was collecting near the edge and I got too close. The dirt I was standing on crumbled and I rolled all the way down.”

Bellamy still doesn’t really know what to say, and he can feel Clarke getting agitated at his lack of reaction.

“I know, okay? I _know_ it was stupid but it happened and there’s nothing I can do about it now so just hurry up and make fun of me if that’s what you’re gonna do,” she practically yells, fire in her voice. “Just get it over with already.”

Bellamy’s biting back a smile. “It’s a dangerous world out there, Clarke…”

She smacks him, which messes up their balance and he almost drops her. “You don’t have to be so godamn smug about it!”

“I’m not smug, Clarke, it’s just that since I have managed to evade the threat of hills at this point in my life, I have much wisdom to offer you.”

“I don’t care that you’re the only thing keeping me upright, I am going to punch you so hard you fall over.”

Bellamy finally laughs, and he feels some tension leave Clarke’s shoulders as he does. He knows it’s kind of mean to laugh, but Clarke has always been so composed, and so prepared for whatever new obstacle is thrown her way, and Bellamy finds it hilarious that it was a hill that finally took her down.

“You’re an asshole,” she mutters, but there’s a smile on her lips.

They reach the med-bay, and Bellamy does his best to help Clarke get through the flap without tripping. It’s incredibly frustrating, and Bellamy just wants to scoop her up in his arms and carry her, for god’s sake. But he doesn’t. When they finally get inside, Abby’s name on Clarke’s lips, they quickly realize that there are more serious things happening. There’s an unconscious man on the table in front of them, and Abby is yelling at one of her new apprentices. She’s all business, and she doesn’t even look over at Clarke and Bellamy.

“Maybe we should come back later,” Bellamy whispers to Clarke.

Clarke shakes her head. “Nah, I’ll just fix myself up. Help me get to my tent?”

So they struggle their way back through the flap and out of the med-bay as Bellamy leads the way to Clarke’s tent. When they get inside, Bellamy helps her sit on her bed, and she tries to hide her wince of pain, but Bellamy catches it again. The playfulness in him has evaporated, and the concern for his partner is all he can think about.

“Can you get me my first aid kit?” she asks. “It’s on that chair over there, in the corner.”

He grabs it and turns back around just as Clarke is yanking off her shirt. He freezes, completely caught off guard, and lets his gaze wander over her chest. He has no idea what to do, and his mind is thinking so many thoughts he can barely understand himself. His eyes travel a little lower, and then he understands why she took her shirt off: there’s a huge, angry-looking slash that starts at Clarke’s hip-bone and ends at the bottom of her ribs. It’s puckered and seeping blood, and looks like it’s got some dirt caked in it.

“Jesus, Clarke,” Bellamy gasps. “What the hell?”

She carefully runs a finger along the cut. “There may have been some sharp rocks in my way as I rolled down the hill.”

“You didn’t think your massive cut was worth mentioning when you first walked in?” Bellamy roars, getting mad at Clarke and himself. She’d been dumb, but he’d been careless—he knew she was hurt, and he still just laughed it off.

“It’s not like I’m losing gallons of blood, Bellamy,” she says, annoyed. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“You think you’ll need stitches?” he asks.

“Probably.”

“I swear to God, Clarke—”

“I’m _fine,_ Bellamy,” Clarke says, her tone impatient. “Just give me the first aid kit already.”

He hands it over and pulls the chair over to the bed so he can watch Clarke as she fiddles with some of the equipment in the kit. She pulls out a bottle of antiseptic, some bandages, a small pair of scissors, a needle and some thread. She dips a piece of the bandage in the antiseptic and pauses to exhale once, twice, three times. Then, she presses the bandage to the wound, and sucks her teeth in pain.

“Shit, that’s unpleasant,” she says through gritted teeth. She holds the bandage there for another second, making sure it’s sterile, before she pulls it off to sterilize the needle.

“You’re going to sew yourself back together?” Bellamy asks, incredulous.

“Not like I have much of a choice,” Clarke replies, pretty flippant about the whole thing.

Bellamy leans forward and touches Clarke’s hand, grabbing the needle and thread from her fingers, but also giving himself a reason to touch her. “I could do it.”

She makes a face. “You? Have you ever stitched a wound before?”

“No, but I’ve sewn tons of clothes,” he tells her, his chest aching at the memory. “My mother was a seamstress on the Ark.”

Clarke looks down and bites her cheek, knowing that Bellamy’s mother had been floated. “Bellamy—”

“I can handle it, Clarke.” He reaches forward and lightly tilts up her chin so she looks at him. Her eyes are big and unsure, but they don’t leave Bellamy’s gaze. “Let me help you,” he says, his voice soft.

It takes her a second, but Clarke nods. “Okay.” She grins a little and gives him an amused look. “Patch me up, Blake.”

He huffs a laugh and drops his gaze, suddenly feeling nervous. He looks down at the tools in his hands, and starts to unspool some thread. Once he’s got the pin ready, he looks back up at Clarke, who is staring so intently at Bellamy that his stomach drops. She’s staring at him like he holds every answer to every question she could ever ask, and he doesn’t know what that means but he feels like he can’t think properly when she’s looking at him like that.

He clears his throat, startling Clarke out of whatever trance she was in, and says, “Ready?”

“Yeah. Let’s do it,” she replies, and leans back so the entire wound is exposed.

Bellamy moves closer so his leg is pressed up against Clarke’s, and then he sheds his jacket to make himself feel less bulky. It’s warm enough with him and Clarke in the tent together, anyways. He takes one deep breath before he gets to work, weaving the thread through Clarke’s skin and not pausing even when Clarke takes a sharp breath of pain. It’s tedious work, but Bellamy’s fingers are attuned to the little movements and he’s able to easily sew Clarke back together. He’s glad he’s had so much practice, though, because if the movements weren’t second nature to him, he probably would have botched it. Being so close to Clarke is very distracting for him: he can feel the rise and fall of her chest beneath his fingertips, and the warmth of her skin leeches into him, and the way goose bumps sometimes rise on her flesh after his fingers brush her skin drive him crazy. He doesn’t let himself look into Clarke’s eyes at all as he works, but he can feel her staring at him again and that’s enough to almost send him over the edge. He hadn’t even realized he was teetering so close to that edge until he couldn’t stop biting his lip every time he thought about the fact that Clarke was sitting beside him, half naked, and he was touching her. He fights the whole time to keep his breathing even, but every once in a while a ragged breath escapes and his cheeks feel warm and he aches to look at Clarke, but he doesn’t.

“Almost done,” he says: just a few more strokes and she’ll be stitched up. It’s at that moment he realizes he and Clarke didn’t speak the entire time he was working, but it never felt awkward.

“My hero,” Clarke says drily, but he can hear the gratitude in her voice. He smiles, and flicks her stomach a few inches from the wound. She laughs, and Bellamy feels warmth spreading across his face again.

“You better start thinking of some way to make it up to me,” Bellamy says, smirking. “I don’t offer my heroic services for free.”

“Oh? What did you have in mind?”

“Hmm. I was thinking of something easy, you know, like you have to wait on my every beck and call for a month or whatever. You know, easy.”

She laughs again, and he finally looks up from his work and catches her genuine smile and the sparkle in her eyes. Her cheeks are rosy, and he’s wondering if she’s feeling the same warmth of affection he does when the tent flap ruffles and someone walks in.

They both turn to see Abby standing in the entrance, dark circles under her eyes and worry in the creases on her forehead. She’s breathless, like she ran here, and her eyes are demanding answers. Bellamy looks back down at his hands still lingering on Clarke’s skin and quickly pulls them back to himself, feeling Abby glaring at him. He scoots away so their legs aren’t touching anymore.

“What is going on here? Someone told me you stopped by earlier, Clarke, and I didn’t know if you were okay.”

“Mom! We were just, um—Bellamy and I, he was just fixing me up. I had a nasty fall but everything is okay now,” she says, trying to sound calm but it comes out rushed and flustered. Bellamy sneaks a peek at Clarke, who is pulling down her shirt and blushing. She refuses to meet her mom’s gaze.

“Okay, well, come by the med-bay later so I can make sure nothing’s infected,” Abby says, an edge to her voice.

Clarke lifts her shirt again, runs her fingers down the suture and says, “Nope, no infection.”

Bellamy catches the way Abby purses her lips, knowing she’s not needed or even particularly wanted in this tent at the moment. “All right, then,” she says and gives Clarke one more look before she opens the flap and steps back outside.

Bellamy lets out a long breath and looks back to Clarke, who is gnawing on her bottom lip. She turns to meet his eyes, and they both burst into laughter, letting the tension drain out of them.

“Thanks, Bellamy,” Clarke finally says, the laugher fading from her voice. “I probably wouldn’t have been able to stitch this up myself. I can’t really see the wound that great from my angle.”

Bellamy gives Clarke a small smile and nods, his throat a little clogged with some sort of feeling he doesn’t have the time to sort out. The smile Clarke gives him in return reaches her eyes, and they hold each other’s gazes for a few minutes before Bellamy knows he needs to get back to the patrol. He stands, stretches his leg, and makes a decision. It might be stupid, but that feeling stuck in his throat is spreading and he just wants to feel her skin one more time.

He walks over to Clarke, digs his fingers into her messy hair and leans down to press his lips to her forehead. She tastes like dirt and sweat and blood, but he doesn’t really mind. He hears her small sigh of contentment and she leans forward into the kiss. He pulls back and traces her jaw with his thumb as he says, “Be more careful next time, all right?”

She nods slightly, her bright eyes darting between his eyes and his lips, and he can’t stop himself from leaning forward again to quickly kiss her nose. When he pulls back this time, he lets go of her face and turns around to leave. His stomach is churning, his heart is pounding, and there’s a smile he can’t suppress on his lips. _Is this what love feels like?_ he wonders. The thought doesn’t scare him as much as he thought it would.


End file.
